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My latest column for the International New York Times is on the debate about press regulation in Britain. It is published in the INYT under the headline ‘Britain Needs a First Amendment’. Here are the opening paragraphs and a link through to the INYT essay. Last month two figures at the heart of Britain’s political and journalistic establishment went on trial. Rebekah Brooks is the former chief executive of Rupert Murdoch’s News International, and a close friend of Prime Minister […]

I am hacked off by politicians who think that a last-minute backroom deal is the proper way to resolve a critical political issue. Who think that a shabby compromise between two bad proposals makes a good proposal. Who imagine that imposing exemplary damages on those who refuse to sign up to a regulatory quango creates a freer press. I’m hacked off by campaigners who have so little respect for free speech that they are happy to use legislation to reform […]

Everybody believes in press freedom. But what is it to have a free press? And how do we protect it? These are the questions raised by the publication of the Leveson report into the ‘culture practice and ethics’ of the British press and the debate that has both preceded and followed it. In his report, Lord Justice Leveson talks of his ‘outrage’ at the ‘havoc wreaked on the lives of innocent people’ by the unethical and criminal behaviour of sections of the British […]